Asthma sufferers are dying needlessly due to substandard medical care, says the Royal College of Physicians.<\/p>\n
An in-depth review of 195 asthma-related deaths revealed two thirds of fatalities could have been avoided.<\/p>\n
More than 5 million people have asthma in Britain. Around 1,200 people will die from the condition every year, about 20 of which are children.<\/p>\n
The study concluded there was \u201croom for improvement\u201d in 83% of adult deaths, with the overall standard of care deemed inadequate.<\/p>\n
The care provided to child asthma sufferers was even worse, with care rated as inadequate in 26 out of 28 deaths that were assessed.<\/p>\n
Systemic problems<\/b><\/p>\n
The National Review of Asthma deaths, led by GP Mark Levy, attributed the deaths to systemic problems throughout the NHS.<\/p>\n
It found that guidelines are being routinely neglected. Medical staff are complacent about the condition, with prescriptions errors and a lack of knowledge both common problems.<\/p>\n
More than half who died were only being treated for mild asthma, and half had not been prescribed preventative inhalers, despite a history of severe attacks and hospitalisations.<\/p>\n
Most of those who died had not been placed under specialist care, and alarmingly half did not have any medical help during their fatal attack.<\/p>\n
Mistakes on a \u201chorrifying scale\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Campaigners have called the state of asthma care a national scandal.<\/p>\n
Kay Boycott, chief executive of Asthma UK, said the review had \u201cidentified prescribing errors of a frankly horrifying scale and is a damning indictment of current routine practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere would be a national outcry if guidelines were routinely ignored in other conditions as they have been in asthma. It will be an absolute scandal if these findings are not acted upon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Substandard asthma care<\/b><\/p>\n
If your loved one has passed away due to substandard asthma care, please get in touch with us to discuss your options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Asthma sufferers are dying needlessly due to substandard medical care, says the Royal College of Physicians. An in-depth review of 195 asthma-related deaths revealed two thirds of fatalities could have been avoided. More than 5 million people have asthma in Britain. Around 1,200 people will die from the condition every year, about 20 of which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[242,241,244,243,245],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asthma-care","tag-asthma-care-2","tag-asthma-deaths","tag-asthma-uk","tag-asthma-related-deaths","tag-national-review-of-asthma-deaths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glynns.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}